An excellent piece on significant steps for educational opportunities with foreign countries.
Prairie Fire - The Progressive Voice of the Great Plains.
Educational partnerships with China,
part one
The first of
a two-part series on the University of Nebraska’s growing exchange of
educational opportunities with China, this article discusses the
importance of China on the world stage and the partnerships that have
been developed between the Nebraska university system and Chinese
universities.

By Jane Hanson
On
Aug. 8, 2008, the Olympic “Bird’s Nest” stadium in Beijing was the site
of pageantry, protocol and fireworks for the 2008 Summer Olympics, as
China very visibly stepped out on the world stage. If by any chance you
missed the television coverage of the opening ceremonies at the Summer
Olympics, you might not understand fully the need for a connection
between China and the University of Nebraska. You might even ask
yourself why events halfway around the globe, in a time zone 12 hours
ahead of Nebraska, could have so much significance. The answer is that
China, with a population of 1.3 billion people, has impacted world
markets through the manufacturing of world goods, the import of raw
materials and the processing of its own natural resources, on an
unprecedented global scale. If you have any doubt of this, walk through
any mall or strip mall in America and make a count of the “Made in
China” labels. It would be much more challenging to find labels on
merchandise that do not carry the words. In order to sustain
such economic growth, China must educate its work force, and it is
turning increasingly to foreign universities to assist in this process.
This article will focus on the role of Nebraska’s premiere public
university, the University of Nebraska, and its growing exchange of
educational opportunities with China.